(Let There Be) Kitchen Light

Well, the ceiling is offically, completely painted white. This is normally where a picture of said ceiling would go but it was too dark to take one so you'll just have to take my word for it, 'kay? I'll post a picture of it in all of its white gloriousness soon enough.

For now though, let's talk lights.

I wanted to give you guys a quick update, I'll come back later with more pictures and a step by step entry.

Now I know I mentioned that we were going to recycle the radiator pipe that was leftover from when we took the radiators out. What a nice thing that would have been. Would have. Logistically it just wasn't working, though. I swear, we tried our very hardest to make it work. My mom and I stood in Lowe's for probably an hour yesterday - up one aisle and down another - trying to find some way to hang radiator pipe from the ceiling and still have lights hanging out of it. It was just adding up to be a big, clunky mess. Finally, we decided to just do separate junction boxes for each light (which we would have had to do anyway) and just attach the wire running to each one to the inside of the beams and then paint it all white when we're done. Clear as mud, right? Like I said, I'll come back and explain it step by step when we're all done.

For now, let me share my inspiration for the lights.

I wanted to have several lights hanging like this one from Rejuvenation

Pretty, right? $100 pretty? Not so much.

Like I said, we spent an insane amount of time at Lowe's (Rejuvenation catalog in hand) and came out with about $11 in product. This was the final(ish) product.

Not bad if I do say so myself.

This one is just sort of temporarily thrown up there so I don't have a lot of pictures of the process of making it but I will get some pics up as soon as we're all finished with it.

Fun fact: we ran out and bought an "Edison" bulb like the one in the picture up there but it was just too stark, at least for now so we put this sweet little guy in there.

Another chapter in the cheapskate-hall-of-fame?

I wanted to have nifty little antique trouble light cages but since those have risen in popularity recently they're anywhere from $30 to $150 (like these that Anthropologie used to have.)

from here

Did a little digging and found them for $3.88 each from 1,000 Bulbs.

I'm going to spray paint them (my favorite color ever) Rust-OleumMetallic Oil Rubbed Bronze.

So basically, no radiator pipe but I have something else in mind for it in the kitchen and frankly, this "Ooops, I remodeled my kitchen!" project is supposed to be two things:

1) Easy

2) Cheap

Neither of which, the radiator pipe lights were going to be.

Stay tuned for a step-by-step hack of those antique trouble lights and who knows, maybe we tear up the floor or take all of the windows out of the living room and re-chord them.

Who knows?